We are 9 weeks old now!

Day 62 - November 18, 2006

There is no entry for today as it is our daughter's birthday so I have not really been on the computer.

Day 61 - November 17, 2006

I'm rather pleased to say that Roulette had a much, much better day today. She did not accidentally get locked in anywhere she shouldn't and all is well. Just like yesterday, prior to being put in Graham's room, the children had some time with the big kids again. I honestly don't know why I do this. As previously mentioned, they will be moving into this part of the house permanently once they have had their vaccinations etc. etc., so maybe I'm trying to ease them into it gradually, who would know! That aside though, they are all coping extremely well with being surrounded by our older babies and our own cat family. Two Up is quite funny though because she has absolutely no idea what to make of being followed by Ice and Sage. Bless her, she is such a tiny little being, but so full of life, and to see her trotting along the floor, with her bushy tail because Ice, Sage, or indeed any of our other adult cats is right behind her, sniffing her the whole time, is really quite funny. Poker and Roulette are definitely more cautious when it comes to mixing with the rest of the family and I tell you, as soon as our current babies all leave home and we have our newest litter, (Lusso just had her honeymoon), then I'll be going back to normal and having babies downstairs at 3 weeks of age! Having 4 litters on the go at the same time (4 yes because of our Cereals who we did not do a diary for as we had only just moved house when they were born, and one of them remained with us and became Ashanti, and we still have darling Frosticles that we are looking for a special home for) really is very exhausting. All 3 of our Black babies are indeed fearless and they just explore everywhere and do what they want and you would think as Roulette and Poker are slightly bigger, although Baccarat is now the same height as Roulette, that they would be much braver but that certainly is not the case.

Day 60 - November 16, 2006

There's no photos in any of the entries today due to lack of time, yet again.

Roulette is have an incredibly bad day today and I am sure when Teen reads today's entry she will be round on our doorstep like a shot to pick up her baby girl :) This morning, I got up, went downstairs and prepared breakfast for all the babies and mums. I then took the Gamblers breakfast upstairs where they were eagerly waiting, all except for Roulette. I didn't see her and figured she was playing somewhere and would join the others at the plate when she was ready. I then took another plate of food into the Trotters, came back downstairs to prepared breakfast for the The Burps. At about 10:30am, Baccarat, Two Up and Blackjack were sitting at the bottom of the steps screaming at me to be "let out" so they could play with everyone else. I let them out, as well as Drambuie, but Poker and Roulette didn't come down. After about 20 minutes if playing, Poke meandered down the stairs to join the rest of the family, but still no Roulette. When the Gamblers had finished playing with the "big kids", I then put them into Graham's room where they normally spend the day. At 11:30am I went into the kitchen to prepare another meal for them and could not understand why Drambuie was desperate to get out of Graham's room and while I was waiting for the food to heat up, I went back upstairs with the hoover and it finally dawned on me that I still hadn't actually seen Roulette, yet half way up the stairs with the hoover I could hear a baby crying. I dropped the hoover, flew upstairs, but couldn't see her. Thoroughly checked out the bathroom, even looking in the rubbish bin, (not that she could ever get in there). I then opened our bedroom door in case she had gone in there when we came out first thing this morning. Still no sign of her but the whole time I'm searching, I could hear her crying. I opened the door to the kitten room where the Trotters are, and again, she was not in there. As a last resort I opened the door to our daughter's bedroom and sure enough, here was Roulette, quite upset as she did not know where she was. She flew out of the room, and I picked her up and gave her lots of cuddles as I carried her downstairs. The look of relief on her face when I sat her on the chair with her mum was something to be marveled at. I then went and gave them all another meal and again, only 4 babies rushed to the plate. I picked up the lid off the litter tray to clean it out yet again, only to discover poor Roulette in there doing the longest wee in the history of mankind bless her. Once she'd finished, she rushed to the plate as if she hadn't eaten in hours (which she hadn't) and after everyone finished eating, and the grooming session was over, the Gamblers all started tearing around and all was well with Roulette's little world again.

Day 59 - November 15, 2006

The babies entertained me last night for ages as they were so funny. I had fed the last meal of the night, somewhere between midnight and 1am, and after everyone finished eating, it was play time. Roulette was in one of those "Tortie" moods and she didn't want to eat, instead, she wanted to continue running around, annoying the rest of her family members. She kept running into the bathroom, running back out up to the plate, and then running back into the bathroom. Drambuie had been enjoying her meal but eventually, enough was enough so she chased her tortie daughter into the bathroom where she proceeded to have words with her and then groomed her all over. While she was grooming her, Roulette, in turn, was grooming her mum and it was such a funny sight and I know I have said this before, but this girl is the spitting image of her mum. I've never seen such likeness between a baby and their mum, not in any of the litters we have ever had. It really is just as well that Teen is having this naughty darling because if she wasn't, then she would be staying here without a doubt. Poker and Baccarat finished their dinner and then the game of chase was on, up the stairs, down the stairs, into the bathroom, and I had to laugh when Baccarat streaked ahead of Poker, ran behind the little bin in the bathroom and Poker reached the door, and couldn't see her. He then ran into the bathroom, went to explore near the bin, and Baccarat shot out from behind the bin, scared the heck out of him, he then turned into Basil Brush, ran out with a look of horror on his face, and ran straight into what was left on the plate. After I finished laughing, I was then entertained by Two Up and Blackjack who had decided it was time to practice pouncing and wrestling around the scratch post and honestly, they are just so funny when they are in these moods and because they are both the same size, they are evenly matched for strength. To watch them running around and around the post, trying to catch each other was making me dizzy so goodness knows how they must have felt.

Day 58 - November 14, 2006

Drambuie and the Gamblers are back in Graham's room today as Sabre, our largest dog, is outside. It was nice having them here in the room with me yesterday but it was extremely chaotic as you can imagine. All 5 of our Gamblers have an appointment with Jo (our vet) on Monday as the babies will be 9 weeks of age then, and I should look at having them vaccinated. I have told Jo however, that we will only be vaccinating 3 of the babies because I do personally feel that due to their size, there is no way either Two Up or Blackjack could be vaccinated so they will probably just have have a check up on Monday. Apart form the size of our 2 small fur children, on the whole, the Trotters are all doing extremely well and when they were first put in Graham's room this morning, there were black and red babies scrambling up the chairs and peering over Graham's desk, wondering whether or not it would be worth jumping on his desk to have a wander around. I was asked in an email yesterday (which I've still not had a chance to answer sorry), what was happening with Two Up and Blackjack as they are now "Not Available" on our siamese kittens for sale page. The reason for this is that if I'm being honest, I will say that as it stands at the moment, I really do not know how long either of our 2 babies will actually be with us. As you can see from the photos, they have not grown at all, whilst everything else about them is still normal, their size certainly isn't. When I was at the vets yesterday with the Burps, I spoke about our 2 small children with Jo and we did briefly discuss the possibility of exploratory surgery to see if something could be corrected, but we do both agree that it's just too much to put such tiny little bodies through. Jo also said that chances are, we wouldn't actually find anything wrong anyway, in which case they have been put at risk for absolutely nothing. What this basically means is that unless they both pick up, such as Baccarat did (remember how a few weeks ago, Baccarat was no bigger than the other two? All of a sudden she turned a corner and is now perfectly normal, not a problem in the world and whilst I know it is highly unlikely, I am going to be holding out hope that Two Up and Blackjack will also turn the corner, and perhaps they are just that bit later in developing). But anyway, until I know for sure, then neither baby will be leaving us. If they pick up and improve as Baccarat did, then that is great and we will find the right homes for them, but if we feel there is no chance at all and that their lives may not be long, then they will be remain here with us for as long as they have. They are our babies and we will be there for them regardless and here in our home, they are happy, loved, secure and are with all that is familiar in their own little worlds.

Day 57 - November 13, 2006

Our Gamblers had a total change of environment today because instead of bringing them downstairs and putting them in Graham's room. I actually just brought them downstairs straight into "general population". The reason for this is that it's been raining outside here today which means that both dogs have been inside in Graham's room and Sabre is quite large, particularly in comparison to Two Up and Blackjack and I am totally petrified she will accidentally stand on one of our 2 tiny babies and squash them. I was expecting total resistance to be honest, particularly from Roulette and Poker, both of whom are not particularly happy to mix with anyone other than their own sisters/brothers. I know that our 3 Black fur children would cope without any problems at all and that is exactly what they just did. Baccarat had a bit of a wander, a bit of a sniff, and then plonked herself in the cat bed with our Burps, Cointreau and Parsley, where she happily settled down and went to sleep! Two Up and Blackjack each found something to do on their own, Blackjack wanted to play with the scratch post, whereas Two Up wanted to play with the pipe cleaner spiders, or what's left of them anyway. Roulette and Poker did not know what to do and for the first hour of being downstairs, they sat in the corner and watched everyone tearing through the hallway and the back room. Then Poker decided to get brave and play with the scratch post, while Roulette found her little sister and started to pick a fight with her because she obviously has a much better chance with her sister, than she does with one of the Burps :) Overall though, I am pleased with how well it has gone and there are times when I do honestly believe, instead of all this pussyfooting about, it's much better to just throw them in the deep end so to speak.

Day 56 - November 12, 2006

No entry today as I had the day off :)